…….
A plant in the office plays the role of a nature-friendly tamagotchi.
One has to care about it, without exagerating. Giving water, but not too much, seldom use of fertilizer.
If the job is done well, the creature survives and develops. You can even get some flowers, from time to time.
Elections represent a reference in my life, and for no special reason, If you ask me.
First, I became 18 just in time for voting the first time, and at the same time I was a candidate, for the local administration: 36 votes.
That outcome stopped my career as a politician, but may be started a process that would have taken over later on.
After my degree (thesis on The Right to Development and the New International Economic Order) I found a job in a strange NGO that I had found in the Yellow Pages.
But I still wanted to go to Africa, to contribute to the cause of development.
After some years, I got the unique proposal to leave to the South of the world, as a UN volunteer to organise elections in Cambodia.
That was not exactly what I was looking for, but I couldn’t expect many other opportuities to come up, then I accepted.
After one year in Cambodia, with some friends and colleagues, we wrote to the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs proposing ourselves as observers for the Mozambican electoral process, and to our big surprise, we got an answer first and a proposal later on, actually to go to South Africa for the first real elections: Mandela elections.
After that one, there were many others: Mozambique, Bosnia, Albania, Palestine, Togo, Moldova, Bangladesh, Malawi, Indonesia, Ecuador, Madagascar, Congo Kinshasa, Ivory Coast, Venezuela.
Sometimes it was useful, sometimes not too much so, almost always it was interesting.
The first memories which come up relate to minor details, funny or potentially tragic, but not historical at all.
In Cambodia, I remember when, after the vote, I was travelling to the Provincial town with on the pick up almost twenty of the local elections officials which worked with me; they had just got their last salary.
A military tried to stop us, he had a machine gun, was probably drunk and surely not very happy about the election outcome. I slowed down and then accelerate again and passed by him. He shot, luckely up in the air; sometimes I wonder ……
In Bangladesh, I remember when with Francesco we went to meet some responsible of the incumbent party, which had lost the elections. On the table there were some peanuts, we ate them fast and furious and after some minutes they had some chicken served for us.
In Togo I met the President, I was alone and had to travel in his stronghold in the North as I met him in his role of candidate. He was big, quite aged and had a ‘preacher’, attitude. For a moment I thought he was out of his mind, but may be he was only acting to impress the young stranger.
In Madagascar, I remember when we interviewed the candidates for the clerical jobs, almost 200 interviews in two or three hours. Finally the people recruited were not bad at all.
In South Africa I remember that walking in Guguletu I was quite scared. Since we arrived in the country everybody was insisting that we had to take care, that it was unsafe for us to go around, that this township was a dangerous place.
May be it was, but there were schools and bakeries and people doing their life as everywhere. The election day, among those long queues, I eventually felt completely safe.
In Mozambique, in the remote village of Muecate, if I remember the name well, I took a photo of the party agents seating one up on the other in the only small bench available. Few days before they were fighting each other and now they were there; impossible to distinguish one from the other. We arrived in the village by elicopter, myself and a Malesian colleague, a military. Both of us did not speak any Portugues, as the local people didn’t either. But we communicate quite well. They proposed to bring us hunting the gazella, unfortunately we declined, it would have been a fantastic story.
In Kinshasa I went to a meeting of the election commission with the parties representatives. The programme mentioned that the meeting would have started with the national hymn. I thought they would have played a cassette. But they all stand up and song all together. In the song was often repeated the name of the country: Congo….Congo ….
In Bosnia I was deployed in Serpsko Goradze, where some of the terrible pages of that conflict were written.
The elections day, when people from the other part of the town came to vote under the escort of the Portugues army, my driver, who was a candidate for the Nationalist Party and was proud of having taken part to the chase against the others, said he was moved as it was a very long time he didn’t see his former neighbours. Once again, I could not tell apart the ones from the others.
What I have learned from these experiences?
That you cannot trust anybody. It is not a totally bad realization. It just means that the rules are important and have to be respected by everyone. Nobody could stand above the rules.
And that elections are not the solution to each problem, do not guarantee democracy and participation but sometimes offer some surprise and allow people to actually declare their will. But that lasts only a moment if there are not the conditions to keep the momentum.
Another note for D could have more conspicuously been dedicated to Drawing. As I have always drawn, and everywhere.
As many others do, when attending a meeting or a conference I fill the borders of any page with doodles.
Sometimes there was reference to politics,
other times with feelings
or any other subject
In some cases sketches made it to the text, as in language lessons
or sometimes, I singled out some scribble for some reason, ready to use.
Sometimes I used drawing for a purpose, as in this rough business card,
Or in this one …
Often they were, and are faces
And the advent of colours added a lot
The new technologies represented a jump forward, both for the actual drawing
but also for the possibility to scan the handmade drawing and treat them digitally, adding text
or producing new products
I soon created my own logo
to be replicated in many of my later productions.
At a certain point, I started drawing in a more structured way, using an Indian ink pen for the main line and small pencils (Japanese ones) for the colours.
That way, I had souvenirs, from several places and countries; I especially remember some drawing from Budapest with locally acquired pastels.
Other examples are scattered through the blog. Then I began using some of the drawing as character for the stories, and so came full circle. But here we are rather at T as tales ……
On 7 March 2005 in a note concerning What can still change the world, I suggested subscribing to honest media as an useful tool.
Now it is the time. Of course, Il Manifesto is not always easy to read, and often one thinks that if you want to survive you have to find a way to get to reader attention, to be considered as an everyday necessity or a pleasure.
But it is also true that when something important happen, an automatic reflex is to check what they think about it, being sure to get some different opinion.
Then I will subscribe, and I advise everybody to do the same. And afterwords to pretend more from the editorial group.
PS, it is possible to subscribe to the web edition, within crisis salaries reach……..
When I wake up I go to the kitchen.
I lift up one of the two curtains which overlook the garden and I say hello to the dog.
Then I put water in the boiler and arrange two tea cups close by, one of them with a tea bag.
When water is boiling, I pour it in the cup (that one with the tea inside) and then I do my gym exercises, always the same.
Exercise lasts just the time for the tea to be ready; at this point I pass the hot beverage from one cup to the other nine times in order to cool it down. I start with the full cup on my left hand.
Of course, before that I had squeezed the tea bag around a little spoon, possibly the transparent one.
After the refreshing procedure, I put the cup left empty in the sink and fill it up with the remaining hot water. In the meantime I lay the other cup on a spongy tissue, in order to dry possible tea drops off.
Then, going to the table with this cup in my right hand I throw away the exhausted tea bag (with the left one, the hand).
Biscuits can be already on the table or I bring them now.
I eat several biscuits, Maria biscuits, and then go back to the sink and wash up the two cups with the water, that is now just warm .
Then I go back to the bedroom to put on one of my numerous and colourful ties.
Since in Brussels, I go for lunch progressively earlier.
First reason is to avoid a middle morning heavy break with ‘cappuccino and cornetto’, which would put at stake my cholesterol levels and would defy my reject for lactose.
Then, going soon to the canteen, I have not to compete with hordes of ravenous colleagues, desperate for getting some food and sit on the best places.
Furthermore, when I go back to the office, almost everybody is gone, guaranteeing some more minutes of quiet and silence.
Never been a good dancer. Being a kid, I remember rather disrupting parties while others were dancing.
Still dance has always appealed to me and finally in 1993, in London, I joined a ballroom course, very interesting experience. It was organised in the same school where I was attending a language course and attendants were quite diverse, most of them British with some foreigners, all ages, and the two most interesting features were that 1. there were not pre-fixed couples, but everyone had to dance with all others and 2. males were a minority, and one got the impression to be sought after (for once….).
In London we also went to a salsa place where there were a few minutes’ instructions beforehand, but this is another story.
Later on, in Roma, we joined a salsa course, but here couples were established and the different approaches to dancing lessons came out, based more on learning the steps or having fun. It did not work very well.
Finally (for the moment) another ballroom course, but in Brussels, not as good as the first one (and probably I had changed too).
It’s time for a new militantism.
And FIOM is a key protagonist of the very modern fight between rich and poor in Italy. Between workers and speculators.
Of course, there are those people (more and more) without a job or without a contract. But this does not transform metal workers into privileged people, the nasty are others.
Then, one simple act, to subscribe for maintaining Fiom presence into the FIAT buildings. FIAT cannot choose its own trade unions.
Few years ago I published the History of Arruffat El Hachbedel accompanying it with the picture of one of his daughters: Msida or Gzira.
Now I found the real picture, much nicer.
But no comments.
Because of the English?
As usual, Italian political left disappoints even the most faithful supporter.
Of course, we all are very happy for the (temporary) end of the previous regime. And sure, comparing the new Ministries with the old ones, makes us sigh with relief.
But the teenager enthusiasm some political leaders shows for the new government, its team and its programme (that are quite a conservative team and programme indeed) do confirm the message we got several times already: left parties’ leaders don’t trust themselves to govern the country.
Why otherwise repeating with an idiotic smile that this solution was the only possible. There are no younger and more progressive experts in Italy? And why they don’t present any indication for possible policies avoiding squeezing the same people further, causing the clear impression that they just hope that ‘super Mario’ would not be too hard on the weakest. May be because he is a church man……
Even when they had a (possible) majority of voters, a sinking adversary and a favourable political (not certainly economic, though) situation, they succeeded in making any other option seem a preferable one.
Cravates d’Afrique stemmed from a double challenge.
During a travel in Burkina Faso I liked very much the local materials (les pagnes) produced in the country of the incorrutible human beings as a media to disseminate political and development programmes.
Those materials were very coloured and brilliant and it was quite difficult to employ them properly.
On the other hand, I started working in an organization where I was required to wear a tie, and I had no one.
Therefore, I searched the Yellow Pages (paper version, no google available yet) and I found a small atelier on the Prenestina road, where they were curious enough to accept to produce just two or three examples.
Then I produced more, I drawed a logo (a sage leaf) and a sticker
and with some friends we organised some gatherings to present the collections
Soon, other products came out, first of all the shopping bags: more elegant than the plastic ones, more handy because of the long handle and less bulky as one could fold it and put in the purse or in a pocket.
Later on, in Ivory Coast, the activity grew up and we tried to structure it better, more details in the dedicated website www.cravatesdafrique.com (first answer if you search by google: cravates and Afrique).
I don’t know why I was thinking to this bycicle that I would have liked to get but was too expensive. Searching the net I found some photos, I remembered it bigger, but it really was something different.
It was advertised on the magazine ‘Topolino’ and had something with the pedals, I don’t remember what.
Looking at the comments, it seems quite a generational milestone; in any case everybody confirms that it was very heavy and not really manageable.
One of the first product with an English name.
This is the first time in my life. Actually, this is the first time I have an undefinite time contract. Also the first time I have a long term contract, before that max 15 months and when in Roma working was rather based on a gentleman agreement.
At Parc Baudoin there is a family of swans.
Every time we go there, I see them growing up. Today they were in the little lake, sliding elegantly on the water.
I wonder where they go afterwards, as there is no trace of the previous clutch.
Benjamin Moloise was a Southafrican poet who was hanged by the apartheid regime.
We thought he was the right person to whom dedicate the transcultural association we wanted to create, and the ASTRACUBEM was born.
We arrived soon on the pages of the new newspaper: La Repubblica, contesting for the publishing of an advertisement for tourism in South Africa.
The first activities we tried to organise were not successful: a meeting bringing together the Southafrican Embassy and the representative of ANC (at the end of the 80s, Mandela was far to be freed). We then tried with the Israeli Embassy and PLO, but again we couldn’t debate.
We had to restrain ourselves to less complicated activities:
a celebration for Nelson Mandela seventieth birthday,
a tombola to collect money for sending bycicles in El Salvador ,
cows in the Amazonia,
and for the independence of Timor Este.
After 1989, also celebrations (and even a movie) to remember the October revolution.
Et voila the group photo …….
I started the ABC Book (expression much less effective than Abbecedario) for my cousins’ sons. Then I added the French definitions for my nephews and my goddaughter. And finally, I updated it in three languages (not in English, unfortunately, but with Spanish addition) for little Paula.
I used some of my drawings, sometimes widening them with the Russian zoom lens I used for printing photos (I had got it in exchange for my collection of Tex strips, but that is another story).
The job was not simple, I passed many hours on the desk; when I started I did not use the computer but pencils and an Indian ink pen.
Later on, I prepared an electronic version; smaller. You may find it here :
http://ilmiolibro.kataweb.it/schedalibro.asp?id=128967
As announced from the beginning, this blog should also serve to keep the memory of certain happenings; as I often feel that many are vanishing.
I’ll go backwards to look for some relevant pieces (relevant to me, of course).
I choose to use an alphabetic criteria rather than a chronological one.
I will start today (in a separate entry) with A as ABC Book.
No reference.
No safe heaven.
No (collect) call.
No more socks and shirts.
No family recipes.
Mr. De Magistris, new elected mayor of Napoli town, is facing a difficult challenge. To be up to his task he needs to create confidence and gain respect, also from opponents and sceptical people (quite numerous in Napoli).
Declaring that in Brussels (as he stayed as European Parliament member) he felt less safe than in Napoli is probably not an intelligent move and risk to be perceived from local audience as a revival of an ancient comedy figure, introduced by the famous comedian Toto’: that one of the ‘guappo di cartone’ (= carton-board thug).
A newspaper ask readers to propose summaries of literature in 6 words.
Here is my attempt about Pinocchio.
She was saying after some time in her bed, when trying to move, with some difficulties and some pain.
But yet she was moving and she wasn’t complaining. Just shutting wide her eyes, when one was helping her getting up, or swearing if we helped her awkwardly.
She crawled like a snail.
But she did not stop.
I didn’t expect she could stop. I didn’t want to.
From Niger river again.
From Niger river
Fools leave to others dealing with the consequences of their own actions.
The wise man uses the brush.
We are now in 2010, but still, at TV weather forecasting, data from Potenza are often referred to as np (not received/non pervenuti) and I wonder why.
Which insurmountable impediment can repeatedly prevent that trivial information to get to the TV editorial desk?
Wouldn’t a simple telephone call be enough if other, more sophisticated means, fell short?
Meanwhile, we remain in the ignorance.
Take an umbrella ………
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